Muslim Manga is a project aimed at using the power of the medium of manga to bring forth a new era of enlightenment.
Muslim Manga is a project aimed at using the power of the medium of manga to bring forth a new era of enlightenment.
The history of Manga
Manga is a Japanese style graphic novel or comic book medium which is also a very popular and powerful form of storytelling. Through the medium of manga, America went from hating the Japanese people in the World War II period to loving them now. We also want to use the power of manga to create a more accurate and positive image of Muslims. Over the years, manga has gained critical attention and interest from middle school students to college students to parents. Some examples of popular anime include Naruto, Pokemon, Spirited Away, and many others.
Having been raised in a generation in which such media is so popular and effective in portraying what is “cool”, we became disheartened that none of the characters in popular manga or anime were Muslims. As Muslim children grow up, it is important for them to be able to identify themselves with a character that they look up to.
Unfortunately, characters that would be appropriate for Muslims children is missing in current popular media. As Muslim children grow up, it is important for them to be able to identify themselves with a character that they look up to. Unfortunately, characters that would be appropriate for Muslims children is missing in current popular media. For this reason, we decided to create our own stories that show Muslims in a good light, as individuals who are friendly, have non-Muslim friends, help others, and share an identity with the western or eastern societies in which they live.
What is Muslim Manga?
Muslim Manga is a project aimed at using the power of the medium of manga to bring forth a new era of enlightenment. Right now, the world is in the dark ages when it comes to knowledge about Islam and Muslims. With media portraying a very negative view of Islam, it is up to us to present ourselves in a different light. Muslim Manga plans to achieve this through four methods:
Method 1: Creating stories with general moral values that can teach people regardless of their religion about various things including having a positive attitude and being grateful.
Method 2: Creating Muslim characters that Muslim children can look up to.
Method 3: Creating stories in which Muslims are portrayed in a more accurate and positive way, as opposed to mass media portrayal of Muslims. These stories may or may not have a specific Islamic message. Instead, it may have a simple message– that Muslims are human; they live, cry, and laugh just like everyone else.
Method 4: Creating stories that teach Islamic principles in a simplified and fun way to younger Muslim children and people who aren’t Muslim.
What are the aims and goals?
The team aims to shed light on real Muslims and who we are through the form of manga (comics). We think that this is an effective way to attract the attention of our own young Muslim brothers and sisters so they have more pride and confidence in their religion through seeing main characters and individuals who share the same belief as them. This form of story telling is also a good way to attract non-Muslims and give them a better representation of who Muslims are and what we are like. With every $25 that is raised, we can illustrate one page of our stories. Each chapter of a story has 20-25 pages. With your support, we can create the content that brings about our vision. Bellow, we have listed some examples of stories we are working on. The goal is to raise enough money to give us the funding to produce consistent monthly chapters of our stories and to work on our app (also described bellow). With your help, we can bring about our vision and become the first main Muslim Manga content creators! So if you like our campaign and what we do, please help us reach our goal. Insha’Allah with your help, we can do some big things!
How can I help?
We have been working on the foundation of the Muslim Manga project for past several years and are now ready to increase the level of our manga production. In the past year, we have begun work on three original manga and have two more in the pipeline. The work involved introducing these stories includes writing, editing, illustrating, and refining for release.
Everything that we create is released for free in the form of digital content on our website, MuslimManga.org for our fans to enjoy and profit from. (Unfortunately our website is currently offline for maintenance purposes)
Once we receive the funding, we will also release the content on other platforms such as Kindle, Nook,Google Play, iBooks, etc., all for free. God willing, our goal is to reach as many individuals as possible.
You can donate by following this link
